Real World Photoshop 6: Industrial Strength Production Techniques - Softcover

Although this cornucopia of tips, tricks, explanations, and experienced wisdom would be useful to any Photoshop user, those most likely to benefit, and benefit a lot, are graphic designers and others working on prepress production. From bit depth to monitor settings, gamut warnings, and file formats, this book faces all those nasty problems that designers often want the service bureau or printer to fix, but really should handle themselves (if they want to have the most control over how their artwork prints).

The first chapters deal with hardware (platform, RAM), what's new in version 6, tools, palettes and dialog boxes, and resolution and color issues (including the complex area of color profiles and monitor calibration). Then there's tonal correction (using histograms and levels), RGB vs. CMYK, adjustment layers, sharpening, spot colors and duotones, working in black and white, and scanning. The last chapters explore selections (paths, masks, and channels), storage options and file formats, output methods (halftones, saving for use in Quark, PageMaker, or InDesign), and even preparing images for onscreen viewing.

This is not a book for beginners who don't yet know basics like opening, saving, and creating artwork. It's good for intermediate and advanced users needing to fill out gaps in their Photoshop knowledge and as a reference--ideal for skipping around, accessing information that's helpful when problems occur. Look up, for example, "drop shadows" and you find five lengthy tips on how to go beyond simply fiddling with the sliders in the dialog box. One lengthy tip even dissects what makes consistent and realistic shadows (where's the light source?). The writing is conversational and occasionally humorous, making reading enjoyable.

The tips are the pot of gold here; there's a whole chapter devoted to them (even Easter eggs). One example shows you how to crop a sliver off the edge of an image without being thwarted by the annoying snap-to-edge--by holding down the Control key while dragging the cropping rectangle. These tricks won't make you a showoff; they are essential time-savers and enhancements to your arsenal of techniques. --Angelynn Grant

David Blatner is a Seattle-based graphic arts consultant specializing in QuarkXPress and Photoshop. He is the author or co-author of a number of books from Peachpit Press, including The QuarkXPress Book, Real World Photoshop, Real World Scanning and Halftones, and Real World QuarkImmedia. He speaks at conferences and seminars around North America and Japan, including Seybold, Macworld, The Photoshop Conference, and The QuarkXPress Conference.

David can provide in-house seminars at your company on subjects such as "QuarkXPress and Photoshop Tips and Tricks" and "Getting Your QuarkXPress Documents Online."

Bruce Fraser is a San Francisco-based freelance writer specializing in publishing and color issues. He is an avid amateur photographer and has used Photoshop since its first appearance as BarneyScan XP. He is a contributing editor for both MacWEEK and MacUser, and is the author of Using Color Management Systems for Pushbutton Color, the definitive industry study on color management systems. He writes and lectures extensively on color publishing issues, and has co-authored several books, including Real World PageMaker 5: Industrial Strength Techniques and How Desktop Publishing Works.